When Mrs. Gray reached home that afternoon, sternly ruminating on the best means of conquering the refractory spirit of her child, she found the house locked, and the rooms empty as she had left them. Malina was no where to be found. It was in vain that Phebe searched for the culprit. She went to their mutual sleeping-chamber, hoping to find her there, but all was silent. She lifted the muslin drapery that fell over the bed like a summer cloud, put her hand through the open sash and parting the thick green leaves of a cinnamon rose tree that half darkened it, looked anxiously up and down the road, and along the footpath which threaded the river’s brink. But the waters gliding quietly by, and a fish-hawk soaring up from the shore just below the bridge, with an unfortunate perch in his claws, alone rewarded her gaze. Still she leaned from the window, apprehensive on her sister’s account, but afraid to extend her search beyond the house, for never in the whole course of her life had Mrs. Gray permitted her children to walk even in the garden on a sabbath day; a walk to and from the old meeting-house morning and evening was all the exercise that she had allowed them. Phebe felt as if almost transgressing a domestic rule even while she lingered with her head out of the window, and when the chamber door opened she started back like a guilty thing, and with a violence that sent a shower of pink leaves half over the room, from the full blown roses which fell rustling together from her hands.
Mrs. Gray entered the chamber quietly, but a little paler than usual, and with her lips still slightly compressed. She evidently expected to find the culprit there, but when she saw only her elder daughter standing by the window, in tears and with a look of trouble on her sweet face, her own composure seemed a little shaken, still she did not speak, but going up to the toilet took a pocket bible from its snowy cover, and dusting away the rose leaves that had fallen there with her handkerchief, was about to leave the room again. As she passed through the door, Phebe found courage to follow her.
“Oh, mother,” she said, “what can have become of her? Where can she be? Let me go and look.”
“It is the sabbath,” said Mrs. Gray, in her usual slow, mild voice.
“I know it is, mother,” replied the weeping girl, “but when a lamb strays from the flock can there be wrong in bringing it home again, even on the sabbath?”
“You may search for your sister in the garden,” was the reply, “and when she is found bring her to the parlor. Our minister will be there, and if she does not beg his pardon for her flagrant conduct, even on her knees if he desires it, she is henceforth no child of mine!”
“Oh, mother, do not urge her to-night. You know how high spirited and resolute she is—and, indeed, indeed, I must think they have been too hard with her—it was cruel to expose her fault before the whole village, her schoolmates and all, and she so proud and sensitive. I wonder it didn’t kill her.”
“Have you also become rebellious?” said Mrs. Gray, turning her eyes with steady disapproval on the agitated girl, and marveling within herself at the burst of feeling which she evinced.
“You will never, I trust, find me rebellious,” replied Phebe meekly, but weeping all the time. “I know that Malina has faults; who has not? but they are such as harsh treatment will perpetuate, not conquer. She is so kind, so warm-hearted, that you can persuade her to any thing.”
“I do not choose to persuade my children,” said the mother, moving forward. “Go seek Malina in the garden, and bring her to me as I desired.”